


3. The View from the Meadow - Inter-Views

by Denise_Felt



Series: Inter-Views [3]
Category: Gerry Anderson's UFO
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-05
Updated: 2010-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:46:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denise_Felt/pseuds/Denise_Felt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How does a writer manage to outfox the foxiest man of all?</p>
            </blockquote>





	3. The View from the Meadow - Inter-Views

## The View from the Meadow

  
by Denise Felt  2010

 

He looked out over the meadow, but couldn't see her among the ocean of flowers that filled his sight. He knew she was there. He always knew when she was nearby. But she must be lying down among the flowers, because he wasn't seeing her from where he stood at the edge of the meadow. Rather than calling out, he decided to find her on his own. He began walking among the daisies and other wildflowers that covered the area. Perhaps she had fallen asleep while she waited for their appointment, and he could wake her with a kiss.

 

At the thought of it, he grinned. She'd probably slap him – hard – for that trespass. She'd let him know where she stood in that area in no uncertain terms. But he couldn't forget the one kiss they had shared. It still burned his lips in memory. And dammit, he wanted to taste her fire again.

 

His ears caught the sound of someone humming, and he followed it until he found who it was. His surprise was equaled by his chagrin. He had known that she would not refuse to meet with him again, if he requested it. She would be too curious to deny herself the opportunity to find out what he wanted this time. And he was determined to win her over – reality be damned! They'd find a way around it. Surely between the two of them, they could reach a solution that worked for both of them?

 

But she had truly outwitted him this time. She looked up as his shadow passed over where she sat weaving a daisy chain and smiled at him. And he smiled back. He couldn't help himself, no matter how angry he might be for being outmaneuvered. She looked so sweet, her large olive eyes open and friendly as they met his. And she couldn't have been more than six years old.

 

"Hi!" she said.

 

"Hello," he answered. "May I?"

 

"Sure," she said.

 

So Straker sat on the grass next to her and tried not to stare. Her dark brown hair had deep mahogany highlights whenever the sun touched it as she moved, turning her from an ordinary little girl into a magical creature with fiery hair on a whim.

 

She accepted his presence without concern, and he wondered at it. He hadn't met her until she was eleven, after the first several episodes of the series had aired on TV in the States. She couldn't know who he was at her present age. Could she?

 

"Do you like daisies?" she asked him as she worked on her chain.

 

Did he? He wasn't sure. But she had written once that he'd given his mother daisies as a young boy, so he decided it was safe to say he liked them. "Yes. Do you?"

 

She nodded. "But the black-eyed susans are my favorites. Do you like them?"

 

"I'm not sure. Which ones are they?"

 

She picked one and gave it to him. "I like them because they always smile. Some flowers don't, and they're not as much fun. But daisies and black-eyed susans smile at you."

 

He looked at the wildflower in his hand. It looked like a darker version of the daisies she was weaving into a chain. And damned if he couldn't see what she meant about it smiling. Its dark center seemed to wink at him, and its golden petals seemed to be waving in welcome. He looked at her in surprise. So young, he thought. And yet so perceptive already. "I notice that you don't have any black-eyed susans in your chain."

 

She nodded. "That's because I'm saving them for the ornament."

 

"Oh."

 

Her head tilted slightly, her large eyes searching his face for a moment. Then she said, "Do you know what an ornament is?"

 

He smiled sheepishly. "I don't think I do," he admitted.

 

She finished her daisy chain, then picked a black-eyed susan and wound it into the chain at one spot. When she put the chain on her head, the wildflower sat at the front center like a diamond in a tiara. "See?" she said. "It's the ornament."

 

"It's beautiful," he told her.

 

"Thanks." Her little hands immediately began gathering more daisies for another chain. She hummed a little while she worked, not bothered at all by his presence. He marvelled at her, watching her create loveliness from a field of common wildflowers.

 

"Do they scare you?"

 

He met her eyes in shock. "What?"

 

She paused in her weaving to explain. "The bad men. Do they scare you when they come after you?"

 

He swallowed. It seemed that she did have an idea who he was. But how was he supposed to respond to a question like that? She sat still, her eyes on him, waiting patiently for an answer. And he realized that he could tell her anything – and she would understand. "Sometimes," he admitted.

 

She nodded sagely. "They scare me too. They have mean eyes."

 

He wondered if she was referring to the opaque covers they wore over their eyes to protect them. They certainly made them appear fierce – and quite inhuman.

 

"You make them go away, don't you?" she asked.

 

"I try."

 

She wove a black-eyed susan into the second chain, then set it on his head. "There. Now you look like a king."

 

He put a hand to his head to center the daisy chain. "Thank you. And are you the queen?"

 

She giggled, a lovely sound that reminded him forcibly of her older self. "Of course not," she told him. "I'm just a princess."

 

He smiled. "I see."

 

She slid her tiny hand into his, looking earnestly up at him. "Can you make all the bad men go away?"

 

His heart broke at the expression in her dark olive eyes. So young, he thought – but already aware that sometimes men did horrible things. He wanted suddenly to make all the bad men in her life go away – in as terrible a manner as they deserved! He wanted to keep her safe here in this meadow, where no one could hurt her. He wanted to protect her – as those who should have hadn't – from all the monsters in her life.

 

"Denise, I'd like to meet the bad men who scare you," he said, keeping his voice even with an effort. "I'd like to show them how it feels to be afraid."

 

She looked into his eyes for a long moment, then smiled sweetly. "Thank you."

 

She rested her head against his arm with a sigh of contentment. He looked down at her dark hair and grinned ruefully. He couldn't deny that she was a consummate strategist. She needed him to be her hero. Had always needed him for that, he knew. But she wouldn't have anything to do with him as a lover. Not because she didn't want him in return; that much was obvious from her response to him when he kissed her. It was just that her other loyalties made that kind of alliance impossible between them. Which left them at a stalemate – a place neither of them wanted to be.

 

So. How did a creative and brilliant writer make a man follow her lead rather than the other way around? How did you checkmate a chess master?

 

Simple. By changing the rules of the game.

 

He chuckled suddenly, and leaning down, kissed the top of her flowered head. "Alright," he said quietly. "You win. We'll just talk. I promise."

 

She grinned up at him, winding her thin arms around his sturdy one before resting her head back against his sleeve. "I love you, Ed," she said on a sigh.

 

"I love you too, Denise," he told her.

 

They sat for a long time in the meadow, wearing their ornamented crowns of daisies and letting the swaying of the wildflowers entertain them as they basked in the sunlight that played hide and seek with the small clouds overhead. And when it grew late and it was time for her to go, he tried very hard not to worry about where she was going and how she would be treated there. After all, he knew the end of this story. He knew she eventually triumphed over all the horror of her youth.

 

But it wasn't easy to wave good-bye to her as she ran out of the meadow. And the setting sun seemed quite indifferent to the tears that ran down his cheeks after she left. The moon had come out, flooding the meadow with its silver light, before he finally stood and walked away, carrying his daisy crown in one hand.


End file.
